Should I Watch Flag?
Plumes of smoke rise out of the city skyline of New York, three firefighters covered in soot, the American flag hoisted out of the rubble left behind by the World Trade Center. Political tension permeates at Tiananmen Square, the audience looks on with bated breath as a man stands in front of a line of tanks in direct opposition, a human blockade. Pedestrians look on in the busy streets of Saigon, a devoted monk sits in a meditative position, as a raging fire consuming his body in silent protest. The end of World War II, a sailor’s arms wrapped around a woman, lips locked in the middle of Times Square, a moment of celebratory relief as civilians and sworn-in officers intermix.
These are all instances captured on film for everyone to witness. Images that could convey meaning, even for those without firsthand experience.
"A picture is worth a thousand words."
It's amazing what one picture can do. With just one image, our attention can be purchased back from the chaotic shuffling of everyday life. Something that could temporarily snap us out of our daily stupor; our focus readjusted. It could be something simple that resonates with us on a personal level or perhaps a quick glimpse into a truth that we abandon simply out of its inconvenience to our day-to-day lives. Confined within its framed border, a picture could tell a tale, capture an emotion, embody the essence of the period it was taken. It could be all that's needed to encapsulate a fleeting moment in time, preserving it for posterity, where it can live on in the memory of the next pair of eyes to gaze upon it. Whether on celluloid or pixelated, what matters, in the end, is its ability to grab the viewer's attention. And perhaps no better example of that are moments that are captured amidst human conflict.
For at the heart of the matter lies a common understanding that we can all share. Something that supersedes religion, race, ethnicity or any sociopolitical borders set in place to keep us apart. Through it all, the right image has the power to stir up an emotional response that takes far more than words to express. They become calling cards for truths. A way of giving tangible form to complex, and often nebulous, ideas. It’s for that reason that we continue to rely on them. Their ability to speak to us is timeless, even if the world around it continues to march forward.
And when it all boils down to it, it’s this rare phenomenon, this occurrence, that Flag attempts to capture. But perhaps more important than that is the way in which it goes about capturing it. A way that’s surprisingly underutilized, both in its presentation decisions and subject matter.
Documenting the civil war of a fictional country named Uddiyana, the show centers around a mission to retrieve a flag that’s become a symbol of peace, not only for the country’s residence but also the international community at large, after a photo was taken of it that immortalized its status as such. And while this retrieval mission is carried out by a small military unit in accompaniment with the same photographer responsible for giving the flag its fame, being brought onboard to help chronicle the mission’s success; the bigger truth for the mission’s significance gets unearthed in the process. As the agenda of all sides involved in the conflict, both domestically and on an international stage, slowly makes itself known to the people involved, what started off as a straightforward mission for an idealistic cause has effectively been turned into a labyrinth maze of political shuffleboarding. A maze that our characters find themselves becoming involuntary pawns in, as it slowly divulges into an elaborate zero-sum game.
By using the framework of this image phenomenon as its central premise, Flag crafts a narrative around a point of view that's usually gone unaccounted for, yet plays the most vital role in the reason these powerful images come into existence, in the first place. Here, we follow the brave men and women that are constantly seeking out the fringe to capture that perfect shot — the kind of picture that finds its place in the pages of historical texts. Whether the journalists in question are using this as a means of income or have a genuine desire to reveal the truth, Flag uses this kind of occurrence as an opportunity to view concepts far less nebulous than the sentimentality behind what they come to represent. A tale that takes on broad implications, yet, surprisingly enough, remains intimate. A type of intimacy that can only be birthed from the cold cynicism of politics once we discuss the presentation being used to contain it all.
What should be understood right up front is that the intended countries being emulated to create this fictional land is of little relevance, as the true importance here is how it will come to represent attributes of everyday conflict seen whenever bigger governing bodies meddle in the dispute of domestic issues. Flag slowly unveils all the chess pieces involved by situating its focus with people who find themselves being designated as the middlemen of public awareness and what occurs at ground zero.
To traverse this story, we follow Saeko Shirasu, a young photojournalist whom, unlike her peers, isn't interested in publicizing truths of some country’s conflict, but rather, uses this opportunity as a chance to carve out a purpose for herself through the photos she captures. Despite gaining recognition among her colleagues and media outlets for the famous image she captured regarding the civil war, there’s far more fueling her to undergo the mission to help retrieve the flag than anything constituted as “noble.” For Saeko, this is a task meant to help find who she truly is. In many ways, the story is every bit about Saeko as it is about the political climate she finds herself navigating across. Something that the show wastes no time in establishing with what’s arguably its biggest draw.
The anime shows everything in a POV (point of view) perspective. Well, to be more accurate, all the events are documented through recording devices located throughout the series. Daily diary vlogs that Saeko makes entries into; the accumulated recordings from her camera; photographs, and videos taken from colleagues; security camera footage implanted in vehicles and buildings, and every other method of data capturing in-between – Flag changes how we perceive this world by essentially turning it into moments stockpiled and fine-tuned through our very own viewfinder. There’s no cheating with elaborate aerial shots intended to enhance the action. Nor are there moments that make you question “Who’s filming this right now?” No, the creative minds behind this series treat their subject matter with respect, never giving into the temptation of excessive theatrics to heighten its drama. If it can’t be realistically captured, it does not get occupied space in this screenplay. This is what grants the show that coveted intimacy that many other creators would kill for. That feeling of isolation and immersion with the people we follow. The viewer isn’t granted a chance to become omnipresent, to shift through scene transitions or have everything laid at their feet through verbal narration. No, the only knowledge we acquire comes from events we see happen at real-time with the people we follow or come in the form of visual archives stored by multimedia devices that are offered to us to dissect whatever we will from it.
By doing this, the show can keep everything up close and personal, something that’s made all the more impressive given the all-encompassing nature of the civil war set on center-stage.
POV shots in storytelling isn’t a novel idea, but despite that, the way Flag goes about repurposing it to tell its story feels entirely fresh. This is something that could be attributed to the obsessive nature of Ryosuke Takahashi, one of the anime industry’s most overlooked auteurs. A man whose insistence for detail and distinct vision of warfare can be seen from his more commercial works (Blue Gender / Armored Trooper Votoms), to his pet projects (Gasaraki / Panzer World Galient). There’s always a general sense that the functionality of his works is something he keeps to the forefront of his mind whenever he’s constructing it. Nothing just happens for the sake of creating a great moment. Instead, great moments are created because what is happening onscreen doesn’t feel that far-off from whatever future-reality it might be channeling. And it’s this commitment towards plausibility that makes following Saeko and the military unit she partnered up with feel every bit as real as any journalist special that may be found time-slotted in CNN’s regular broadcastings.
There’s an understated cinematic fervor to the way the camera locks in its characters in this tumultuous experience. It has the biting grit of a TV series commissioned in the same stylistic vision of Oscar winners like Syriana, Black Hawk Down or The Last King of Scotland. This is seen with the key mechanics of the characters, as we track their involvement within the story. The way events play out in the absence of our protagonist’s view of it. The grainy shot of surveillance footage that’s juxtaposed to the crisp rendering of an expensive hand-held camera. Camera panning that constantly leaves the audience anticipating what will be shown next. These things that might be interpreted as minor flourishings to the untrained eye is ultimately the secret ingredient that helps this anime piece together a cinematic blueprint of its own. Giving a “bigger than the frame can contain” feeling to everything presented. A kind of cinematic engulfment that gives a feeling of involvement to everyone, even those living on the outskirts of the events taking place. It’s a show that gives a platform for those directly caught up in the conflict as well as the civilian bystanders that simply wish to maintain their way of life.
It doesn't just stop at seeing life through the lens but follows the men and women that directly and indirectly help in orchestrating the type of environment that will give birth to the type of photographs our protagonist just so happen to capture. An idea in documenting what goes towards the photo’s origins, both for the viewer and in this rare case, the taker of the image, creating with it a new way of soul-searching that comes as a direct result of these two worlds intermixing.
All of which starts off with the iconic image that carries the narrative from its beginning to its inevitable end. An image that is every bit as iconic as any real-life examples I’ve given at the beginning of this review:
A blue flag waves across the sunburnt landscape of this far-off country, as the armed resistance of the people raise their hands and weapons in triumph. War-torn pieces of a homeland ravaged by violence. Ancient Greco-Roman pillars of a forgotten time positioned firmly in the ground, light cascading through its columns. The silhouette of women praying amidst this small celebration, forever immortalized with their figures embedded in the sunlight and the iconic fabric in mid-wave.
It’s a powerful photo that manages to invoke both the strength of the people united and the hopes they have for peace going forward.
A photograph that will go on to become the calling card of the people, as well as a political asset for those operating with hidden agendas. Pretenses are forged behind it to justify political subterfuge, and while talks of peace are held in the open with smiling faces, bureaucrats and fanatics alike are busy thumbing away at the chance to set their plans into motion, as they masquerade behind falsehoods conjured up to win the trust of the people.
But where other shows would treat this as an opportunity to take a stab at the political system at large, here, it doesn't chastise the men and women of the army that fight blindly to the political agenda of those in charge. Nor does it make it its agenda to oversell the ugliness of these high-ranking figures' actions. Instead, Flag chooses to stand at the wayside, taking in all facets of the ongoing conflict and designating the characters in it as mere vehicles to see how each person chooses to deal with the situation at large. This gives us an angle that’s rarely explored in stories, well, at least never in this exact light.
In most forms of storytelling media, reporters and journalists are usually just there to fill in the role of expository delivers to the audience. Very rarely do these shows stop to get these people’s perspective, let alone follow them for the duration of its story, which is fascinating in and of itself when you stop to think about it. Here are people whose job it is to project a decorum of professionalism regardless of personal bias or situation. An act that’s all the more alarming when you get behind the lens, where the ones that capture random acts of violence towards others don’t even intervene, and in fact, are encouraged not to. People responsible for bringing humanity closest to the truth yet never get involved in it. A level of emotional withdrawal not only from oneself but humanity as a whole, yet at the same time, it’s these very same people that are expected to practice transparency once the greater powers at be decided what angle they will choose to approach the entire situation with.
And for a young woman who is still piecing together who exactly she is in this big, crazy world, that kind of responsibility – no – that kind of willingness to participate must take a mental toll on her, whether she’s fully aware of it or not. And it’s this very mental battle of uncertainty that’s eerily captured with pinpoint accuracy as we see her literally and figuratively look in the mirror, snapping a picture of herself, yet unable to recognize the person looking back in the cold, unfeeling reflection.
It’s powerful moments like these that truly elevate Flag to a place beyond boilerplate fiction, here, this title manages to obtain sticky instances of pathos that finds itself slowly taking ahold of you the more you let the content settle in. And personally, for me, it’s these kinds of moments that keep me constantly returning to the anime medium. It’s one thing to give birth to this phenomenon with real-life actors and actresses in a live-action feature, but it’s a complete other when the already thin membrane of suspension of disbelief for watching an animated title still manages to dupe the audience into forgetting that realization. By effectively obtaining that same level of human intimacy, despite the fact that it’s animated, even if the illusion only happens for a split second, Flag proves that there’s more here than simply mimicking documentary-style storytelling. And this is something the show manages to do on more than one occasion, crossing this threshold into realism more times than I could count. This makes it a feature deserving of far more appraisal than its meager existence as a mecha variant to the higher-budget alternatives. With everything considered, Flag is one of the medium’s more realistic utilization of mecha, politics, and human conflict in a not-too-far-off future, and it’s high-time it gets the proper recognition for that.
Admittedly, the show has its faults. Like anything else made around a specific time, what may once have been considered suitable, or in some cases, expected for certain features, can later run the risk of being viewed as an antiquated element, even going as far as being scorned in retrospect. And in the case of Flag, that aspect was easily its musical selection. Taken as a whole, the soundtrack of Flag demonstrates its fair share of musical highlights, but equally so, a noticeable number of pitfalls for those well-versed in warfare-focused stories. The opening song, to put it lightly, is very clichéd. The over-emphasized yodeling of a middle-eastern woman accompanied by grand orchestral gestures and tribal drum renditions, at this point in the world of storytelling, has been done ad nauseam in war movies and TV series alike. It’s the equivalency to every depiction of High School containing the popular girl with her two lesser-attractive sidekicks cat walking down the hallway as the main protagonist looks on in admiration. A kind of cliché that runs the risk of parody for anyone seriously thinking of incorporating it today.
Thankfully, the intent behind these musical embellishments felt like it came from a place of earnestness and not a result of corporate mandate. Anyone familiar with Takahashi’s directorial style or Yoshihiro Ike’s musical output would find it easy to forgive this treatment, and what I’m assuming would be the majority case, wouldn’t even have registered any of this as a problem at all. Given music’s subjectivity to the ear of the listener, this can simply be chalked up as a personal gripe derived from perceived oversaturation of a musical fallback for anything depicting a third world country.
But regardless of this personal gripe, Flag has become a title I find myself wholeheartedly cherishing for everything it brought to the table. Not only does it stand as a unique entry for anime in general, but beyond that point, it stands as a pillar of legitimacy that naysayers unfairly attempt to rob from the medium. An animated emulation of real-world conflict can stir up an emotional response with the best of them. It can still stand for something bigger than itself. It can still drive its message home with the same level of poignancy. But most of all, it’s deserving of the same level of respect allotted to features that occupy the big screen. And for that, Flag is an anime that earns its keep as one of the medium’s best-hidden gems.
Author: ZephSilver ON MAL
Plumes of smoke rise out of the city skyline of New York, three firefighters covered in soot, the American flag hoisted out of the rubble left behind by the World Trade Center. Political tension permeates at Tiananmen Square, the audience looks on with bated breath as a man stands in front of a line of tanks in direct opposition, a human blockade. Pedestrians look on in the busy streets of Saigon, a devoted monk sits in a meditative position, as a raging fire consuming his body in silent protest. The end of World War II, a sailor’s arms wrapped around a woman, lips locked in the middle of Times Square, a moment of celebratory relief as civilians and sworn-in officers intermix.
These are all instances captured on film for everyone to witness. Images that could convey meaning, even for those without firsthand experience.
"A picture is worth a thousand words."
It's amazing what one picture can do. With just one image, our attention can be purchased back from the chaotic shuffling of everyday life. Something that could temporarily snap us out of our daily stupor; our focus readjusted. It could be something simple that resonates with us on a personal level or perhaps a quick glimpse into a truth that we abandon simply out of its inconvenience to our day-to-day lives. Confined within its framed border, a picture could tell a tale, capture an emotion, embody the essence of the period it was taken. It could be all that's needed to encapsulate a fleeting moment in time, preserving it for posterity, where it can live on in the memory of the next pair of eyes to gaze upon it. Whether on celluloid or pixelated, what matters, in the end, is its ability to grab the viewer's attention. And perhaps no better example of that are moments that are captured amidst human conflict.
For at the heart of the matter lies a common understanding that we can all share. Something that supersedes religion, race, ethnicity or any sociopolitical borders set in place to keep us apart. Through it all, the right image has the power to stir up an emotional response that takes far more than words to express. They become calling cards for truths. A way of giving tangible form to complex, and often nebulous, ideas. It’s for that reason that we continue to rely on them. Their ability to speak to us is timeless, even if the world around it continues to march forward.
And when it all boils down to it, it’s this rare phenomenon, this occurrence, that Flag attempts to capture. But perhaps more important than that is the way in which it goes about capturing it. A way that’s surprisingly underutilized, both in its presentation decisions and subject matter.
Documenting the civil war of a fictional country named Uddiyana, the show centers around a mission to retrieve a flag that’s become a symbol of peace, not only for the country’s residence but also the international community at large, after a photo was taken of it that immortalized its status as such. And while this retrieval mission is carried out by a small military unit in accompaniment with the same photographer responsible for giving the flag its fame, being brought onboard to help chronicle the mission’s success; the bigger truth for the mission’s significance gets unearthed in the process. As the agenda of all sides involved in the conflict, both domestically and on an international stage, slowly makes itself known to the people involved, what started off as a straightforward mission for an idealistic cause has effectively been turned into a labyrinth maze of political shuffleboarding. A maze that our characters find themselves becoming involuntary pawns in, as it slowly divulges into an elaborate zero-sum game.
By using the framework of this image phenomenon as its central premise, Flag crafts a narrative around a point of view that's usually gone unaccounted for, yet plays the most vital role in the reason these powerful images come into existence, in the first place. Here, we follow the brave men and women that are constantly seeking out the fringe to capture that perfect shot — the kind of picture that finds its place in the pages of historical texts. Whether the journalists in question are using this as a means of income or have a genuine desire to reveal the truth, Flag uses this kind of occurrence as an opportunity to view concepts far less nebulous than the sentimentality behind what they come to represent. A tale that takes on broad implications, yet, surprisingly enough, remains intimate. A type of intimacy that can only be birthed from the cold cynicism of politics once we discuss the presentation being used to contain it all.
What should be understood right up front is that the intended countries being emulated to create this fictional land is of little relevance, as the true importance here is how it will come to represent attributes of everyday conflict seen whenever bigger governing bodies meddle in the dispute of domestic issues. Flag slowly unveils all the chess pieces involved by situating its focus with people who find themselves being designated as the middlemen of public awareness and what occurs at ground zero.
To traverse this story, we follow Saeko Shirasu, a young photojournalist whom, unlike her peers, isn't interested in publicizing truths of some country’s conflict, but rather, uses this opportunity as a chance to carve out a purpose for herself through the photos she captures. Despite gaining recognition among her colleagues and media outlets for the famous image she captured regarding the civil war, there’s far more fueling her to undergo the mission to help retrieve the flag than anything constituted as “noble.” For Saeko, this is a task meant to help find who she truly is. In many ways, the story is every bit about Saeko as it is about the political climate she finds herself navigating across. Something that the show wastes no time in establishing with what’s arguably its biggest draw.
The anime shows everything in a POV (point of view) perspective. Well, to be more accurate, all the events are documented through recording devices located throughout the series. Daily diary vlogs that Saeko makes entries into; the accumulated recordings from her camera; photographs, and videos taken from colleagues; security camera footage implanted in vehicles and buildings, and every other method of data capturing in-between – Flag changes how we perceive this world by essentially turning it into moments stockpiled and fine-tuned through our very own viewfinder. There’s no cheating with elaborate aerial shots intended to enhance the action. Nor are there moments that make you question “Who’s filming this right now?” No, the creative minds behind this series treat their subject matter with respect, never giving into the temptation of excessive theatrics to heighten its drama. If it can’t be realistically captured, it does not get occupied space in this screenplay. This is what grants the show that coveted intimacy that many other creators would kill for. That feeling of isolation and immersion with the people we follow. The viewer isn’t granted a chance to become omnipresent, to shift through scene transitions or have everything laid at their feet through verbal narration. No, the only knowledge we acquire comes from events we see happen at real-time with the people we follow or come in the form of visual archives stored by multimedia devices that are offered to us to dissect whatever we will from it.
By doing this, the show can keep everything up close and personal, something that’s made all the more impressive given the all-encompassing nature of the civil war set on center-stage.
POV shots in storytelling isn’t a novel idea, but despite that, the way Flag goes about repurposing it to tell its story feels entirely fresh. This is something that could be attributed to the obsessive nature of Ryosuke Takahashi, one of the anime industry’s most overlooked auteurs. A man whose insistence for detail and distinct vision of warfare can be seen from his more commercial works (Blue Gender / Armored Trooper Votoms), to his pet projects (Gasaraki / Panzer World Galient). There’s always a general sense that the functionality of his works is something he keeps to the forefront of his mind whenever he’s constructing it. Nothing just happens for the sake of creating a great moment. Instead, great moments are created because what is happening onscreen doesn’t feel that far-off from whatever future-reality it might be channeling. And it’s this commitment towards plausibility that makes following Saeko and the military unit she partnered up with feel every bit as real as any journalist special that may be found time-slotted in CNN’s regular broadcastings.
There’s an understated cinematic fervor to the way the camera locks in its characters in this tumultuous experience. It has the biting grit of a TV series commissioned in the same stylistic vision of Oscar winners like Syriana, Black Hawk Down or The Last King of Scotland. This is seen with the key mechanics of the characters, as we track their involvement within the story. The way events play out in the absence of our protagonist’s view of it. The grainy shot of surveillance footage that’s juxtaposed to the crisp rendering of an expensive hand-held camera. Camera panning that constantly leaves the audience anticipating what will be shown next. These things that might be interpreted as minor flourishings to the untrained eye is ultimately the secret ingredient that helps this anime piece together a cinematic blueprint of its own. Giving a “bigger than the frame can contain” feeling to everything presented. A kind of cinematic engulfment that gives a feeling of involvement to everyone, even those living on the outskirts of the events taking place. It’s a show that gives a platform for those directly caught up in the conflict as well as the civilian bystanders that simply wish to maintain their way of life.
It doesn't just stop at seeing life through the lens but follows the men and women that directly and indirectly help in orchestrating the type of environment that will give birth to the type of photographs our protagonist just so happen to capture. An idea in documenting what goes towards the photo’s origins, both for the viewer and in this rare case, the taker of the image, creating with it a new way of soul-searching that comes as a direct result of these two worlds intermixing.
All of which starts off with the iconic image that carries the narrative from its beginning to its inevitable end. An image that is every bit as iconic as any real-life examples I’ve given at the beginning of this review:
A blue flag waves across the sunburnt landscape of this far-off country, as the armed resistance of the people raise their hands and weapons in triumph. War-torn pieces of a homeland ravaged by violence. Ancient Greco-Roman pillars of a forgotten time positioned firmly in the ground, light cascading through its columns. The silhouette of women praying amidst this small celebration, forever immortalized with their figures embedded in the sunlight and the iconic fabric in mid-wave.
It’s a powerful photo that manages to invoke both the strength of the people united and the hopes they have for peace going forward.
A photograph that will go on to become the calling card of the people, as well as a political asset for those operating with hidden agendas. Pretenses are forged behind it to justify political subterfuge, and while talks of peace are held in the open with smiling faces, bureaucrats and fanatics alike are busy thumbing away at the chance to set their plans into motion, as they masquerade behind falsehoods conjured up to win the trust of the people.
But where other shows would treat this as an opportunity to take a stab at the political system at large, here, it doesn't chastise the men and women of the army that fight blindly to the political agenda of those in charge. Nor does it make it its agenda to oversell the ugliness of these high-ranking figures' actions. Instead, Flag chooses to stand at the wayside, taking in all facets of the ongoing conflict and designating the characters in it as mere vehicles to see how each person chooses to deal with the situation at large. This gives us an angle that’s rarely explored in stories, well, at least never in this exact light.
In most forms of storytelling media, reporters and journalists are usually just there to fill in the role of expository delivers to the audience. Very rarely do these shows stop to get these people’s perspective, let alone follow them for the duration of its story, which is fascinating in and of itself when you stop to think about it. Here are people whose job it is to project a decorum of professionalism regardless of personal bias or situation. An act that’s all the more alarming when you get behind the lens, where the ones that capture random acts of violence towards others don’t even intervene, and in fact, are encouraged not to. People responsible for bringing humanity closest to the truth yet never get involved in it. A level of emotional withdrawal not only from oneself but humanity as a whole, yet at the same time, it’s these very same people that are expected to practice transparency once the greater powers at be decided what angle they will choose to approach the entire situation with.
And for a young woman who is still piecing together who exactly she is in this big, crazy world, that kind of responsibility – no – that kind of willingness to participate must take a mental toll on her, whether she’s fully aware of it or not. And it’s this very mental battle of uncertainty that’s eerily captured with pinpoint accuracy as we see her literally and figuratively look in the mirror, snapping a picture of herself, yet unable to recognize the person looking back in the cold, unfeeling reflection.
It’s powerful moments like these that truly elevate Flag to a place beyond boilerplate fiction, here, this title manages to obtain sticky instances of pathos that finds itself slowly taking ahold of you the more you let the content settle in. And personally, for me, it’s these kinds of moments that keep me constantly returning to the anime medium. It’s one thing to give birth to this phenomenon with real-life actors and actresses in a live-action feature, but it’s a complete other when the already thin membrane of suspension of disbelief for watching an animated title still manages to dupe the audience into forgetting that realization. By effectively obtaining that same level of human intimacy, despite the fact that it’s animated, even if the illusion only happens for a split second, Flag proves that there’s more here than simply mimicking documentary-style storytelling. And this is something the show manages to do on more than one occasion, crossing this threshold into realism more times than I could count. This makes it a feature deserving of far more appraisal than its meager existence as a mecha variant to the higher-budget alternatives. With everything considered, Flag is one of the medium’s more realistic utilization of mecha, politics, and human conflict in a not-too-far-off future, and it’s high-time it gets the proper recognition for that.
Admittedly, the show has its faults. Like anything else made around a specific time, what may once have been considered suitable, or in some cases, expected for certain features, can later run the risk of being viewed as an antiquated element, even going as far as being scorned in retrospect. And in the case of Flag, that aspect was easily its musical selection. Taken as a whole, the soundtrack of Flag demonstrates its fair share of musical highlights, but equally so, a noticeable number of pitfalls for those well-versed in warfare-focused stories. The opening song, to put it lightly, is very clichéd. The over-emphasized yodeling of a middle-eastern woman accompanied by grand orchestral gestures and tribal drum renditions, at this point in the world of storytelling, has been done ad nauseam in war movies and TV series alike. It’s the equivalency to every depiction of High School containing the popular girl with her two lesser-attractive sidekicks cat walking down the hallway as the main protagonist looks on in admiration. A kind of cliché that runs the risk of parody for anyone seriously thinking of incorporating it today.
Thankfully, the intent behind these musical embellishments felt like it came from a place of earnestness and not a result of corporate mandate. Anyone familiar with Takahashi’s directorial style or Yoshihiro Ike’s musical output would find it easy to forgive this treatment, and what I’m assuming would be the majority case, wouldn’t even have registered any of this as a problem at all. Given music’s subjectivity to the ear of the listener, this can simply be chalked up as a personal gripe derived from perceived oversaturation of a musical fallback for anything depicting a third world country.
But regardless of this personal gripe, Flag has become a title I find myself wholeheartedly cherishing for everything it brought to the table. Not only does it stand as a unique entry for anime in general, but beyond that point, it stands as a pillar of legitimacy that naysayers unfairly attempt to rob from the medium. An animated emulation of real-world conflict can stir up an emotional response with the best of them. It can still stand for something bigger than itself. It can still drive its message home with the same level of poignancy. But most of all, it’s deserving of the same level of respect allotted to features that occupy the big screen. And for that, Flag is an anime that earns its keep as one of the medium’s best-hidden gems.
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